The Damnation of Theron Ware eBook

“The truth is always relative, Mr. Ware,”
replied the priest, turning away, and closing the
door of the parlor behind him with a decisive sound.

Left alone, Theron started to make his way downstairs.
He found his legs wavering under him and making zigzag
movements of their own in a bewildering fashion.
He referred this at first, in an outburst of fresh
despair, to the effects of his great grief. Then,
as he held tight to the banister and governed his
descent step by step, it occurred to him that it must
be the wine he had had for breakfast. Upon examination,
he was not so unhappy, after all.

CHAPTER XXXI

At the second peal of the door-bell, Brother Soulsby
sat up in bed. It was still pitch-dark, and the
memory of the first ringing fluttered musically in
his awakening consciousness as a part of some dream
he had been having.

“Who the deuce can that be?” he mused
aloud, in querulous resentment at the interruption.

“Put your head out of the window, and ask,”
suggested his wife, drowsily.

The bell-pull scraped violently in its socket, and
a third outburst of shrill reverberations clamored
through the silent house.

“Whatever you do, I’d do it before he
yanked the whole thing to pieces,” added the
wife, with more decision.

Brother Soulsby was wide awake now. He sprang
to the floor, and, groping about in the obscurity,
began drawing on some of his clothes. He rapped
on the window during the process, to show that the
house was astir, and a minute afterward made his way
out of the room and down the stairs, the boards creaking
under his stockinged feet as he went.

Nearly a quarter of an hour passed before he returned.
Sister Soulsby, lying in sleepy quiescence, heard
vague sounds of voices at the front door, and did
not feel interested enough to lift her head and listen.
A noise of footsteps on the sidewalk followed, first
receding from the door, then turning toward it, this
second time marking the presence of more than one
person. There seemed in this the implication of
a guest, and she shook off the dozing impulses which
enveloped her faculties, and waited to hear more.
There came up, after further muttering of male voices,
the undeniable chink of coins striking against one
another. Then more footsteps, the resonant slam
of a carriage door out in the street, the grinding
of wheels turning on the frosty road, and the racket
of a vehicle and horses going off at a smart pace
into the night. Somebody had come, then.
She yawned at the thought, but remained well awake,
tracing idly in her mind, as various slight sounds
rose from the lower floor, the different things Soulsby
was probably doing. Their spare room was down
there, directly underneath, but curiously enough no
one seemed to enter it. The faint murmur of conversation
which from time to time reached her came from the
parlor instead. At last she heard her husband’s
soft tread coming up the staircase, and still there
had been no hint of employing the guest-chamber.
What could he be about? she wondered.